The morning before a bridgetender`s miscue forced a sedan to make a dramatic leap over a rising drawbridge in Pompano Beach, witnesses reported that five or six people appeared to be having a party in the bridgetender`s cabin.

The same day, at the same Intracoastal Waterway bridge, a pedestrian reported that he had been caught on the bridge as it opened and that he injured his ankle as he leaped off the rising span.

Bridgetenders also have racked up hundreds of dollars in unauthorized personal telephone calls, invited friends to drink in the bridge cabins and orally abused people passing over and under the bridges, state records show.

Such complaints have appeared regularly in state Department of Transportation files since Global Contract Services Ltd. started supplying bridgetenders for eight bridges in Broward and Palm Beach counties 18 months ago.

Yet the department in December renewed Global`s annual contract. Officials claim it would be difficult for the state to find bridgetenders independently.

``We can`t (remove Global) because we don`t have the manpower to take over the contract,`` said DOT engineer Rolando Mezquita in Palm Beach County. ``We don`t have the people to man those bridges.``

Global has fired the 16-year-old bridgetender involved in Saturday night`s episode on the Northeast 14th Street Bridge in Pompano Beach. The company also has been fined $100 and ordered to file a report with the state on the matter.

Nick Thompson, Global`s supervisor for the bridge, said complaints of partying and other incidents on the bridge the morning before the 10 p.m. accident were not true.

Global owner Steven Raczynski could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Department files show that while Global has been paid $469,000 a year for staffing the eight bridges from Atlantic Boulevard in Pompano Beach to Ocean Avenue in Boynton Beach, the department and travelers have lodged the following complaints:

-- A boat passenger who tried to get the Northeast 14th Street Bridge raised about 7:45 a.m. on Saturday said no one answered the bridgetender`s radio. The passenger ``saw 5-6 people in bridge house -- looked like they were dancing!`` a DOT report of the complaint says.

-- Bridgetenders in Palm Beach County made $1,640 worth of unauthorized personal telephone calls from the cabins.

-- Thompson, the supervisor in charge of the bridgetender on duty at the Northeast 14th Street Bridge when the sedan was trapped on Saturday night, had been fired by the state in 1986 for allegedly letting friends drink in his bridgetender`s cabin. ``We have reason to believe the action is continuing,`` the transportation department told Raczynski in an April 1987 letter after Thompson had been hired by Global. Thompson said on Wednesday that the accusations were prompted by a falling-out he had with a transportation department manager.

-- A Global bridgetender on Saturday morning raised the Atlantic Boulevard in Pompano Beach bridge as an 80-year-old man and his 77-year-old wife tried to cross. The next day, a tender on the same bridge yelled obscenities at a woman crossing the bridge on a bicycle, chased her and acted like ``a maniac.``

-- Bridgetenders kept dogs in the cabins.

The Boca Raton Hotel and Country Club, the Pompano Beach Chamber of Commerce and Capt. William Hipple, captain of the 105-foot charter boat Empress, have added their complaints to criticisms of bridge operations under Global.

Hipple on June 15 had to turn back the Empress with 180 passengers on board when he could not get a tender to raise the Atlantic Boulevard bridge in Pompano Beach.

``When you come up to any bridge, you`ve got a 50-50 chance of someone being there,`` he said. ``They`re either asleep or gone. Unfortunately, it`s all too common.``

In February, when luxury clipper ships were scheduled to travel down the Intracoastal, transportation department officials overseeing the Global contract got a scribbled memo imploring: ``Please! No screwups.``

In letters to the department, Raczynski denied complaints against the company and said his bridgetenders were ``seasoned veterans.`` He also said, ``Our training and qualifying of these employees exceeds contract specifications.``

State records show the department`s Palm Beach County office has fined Global $1,100 for various contract infractions since Global took over in December 1986.

State officials in Broward County have tried to fine Global at least $400 for failing to certify that the bridgetenders are familiar with state and federal operating procedures, records show. But officials say they have been forced to rescind the fines after appeals by Global.

``Any time we have withheld money he has protested, and he has usually won,`` said Ken Roberts, a transportation department engineer in Broward County.

Roberts said officials of the department ordered the Global contract renewed in December, although in Broward, ``Our yard did not want to renew them.``

Mezquita of the transportation agency said that if things got too bad, the department could find a way to get rid of Global.

``If we continue to have headaches, we`ll follow the steps to get rid of him,`` Mezquita said. Global has an option to renew through 1989.